Bucky's Time Capsule
by Panic-for-Bucky-Barnes
Summary: One of Four in the series. People Bucky Barnes has met while being held captive by Hydra.


The Jacket

Slovakia Hydra Base, May 23rd,1956

A man silently waits in the cell. For once, I am intrigued. I inch closer to the bars. Father looks up from his paperwork to tell me to be careful. The man was broken, whatever the faculty did to him was obviously a crime. I could not say so, for Father would surely punish me for the endless ideas of freedom, and Mother would tease me for being American-minded in Slovakia. The only thing I could do was sit on the other side of the bars, not knowing what he had seen or been through, or who he had lost.

"What's your story?" I ask him.

He looks up from the trance they put him in points to a jacket hanging on the outside of the cell. I look back and forth from the innocent blue, almost gray eyes to the royal blue jacket hanging on the makeshift coat hook mounted on the wall.

"The jacket... can I have it back?" He asks.

I sit up to reach for the jacket, just as a hand lands on my shoulder. I turn around to see Father, with a worried expression on his face.

"Susan, it's time to go," he says. I look back at the man in the cell.

"Ok Father, I'm coming," Father swiftly turns away from me and walks to the door. I look back at the man.

"I'll be back, you will get your jacket- I promise," I say to him in a low whisper.

I manage to sneak out of the house later that night and sneak into the facility on the edge of town. Within five minutes of entering the building, I find him sitting in the same position as I left. I stuff the jacket between the bars of the cell. When I turn back to the now empty coat hanger, I see one key hanging on the metal pipe. I grab the key and hold it next to the lock of the cell, when I push it into the lock, the door opens, and the man raises his eyebrow. Quickly, I hop inside the cell with him and close the door behind me, key in hand.

"You need to tell me what it was like where you lived, I don't care if you lived in the next town over I want to know what life is like for someone else. I'm sick of Hydra in my home and being teased for my ideas, I want to know," I say to him. His smile was so weird, I could tell he was overdue for a smile or a laugh.

"Alright," he says in broken Russian, "I'll tell my story,"

"I think my name is Ja... no it's Bucky, I'm sure of it. I'm from Brooklyn, New York, far away from here. I left behind so many friends who probably think I'm dead..." he stops, taking a deep wavering breath. "You've heard of Ste... sorry... Captain America, right? Well I've worked with him, we were very close with each other."

"Like extra close or..." I say. He gives me a dirty look.

"Yes, I guess you could say we were extra close. Except he was not fit for fighting, but he wanted to fight for freedom, so that little punk he... he finds some way to get himself eligible for fighting, involving science and idiots in lab coats. Long story short kid, our last mission ended in my "death" he makes quotation marks in the air with one of his arms, "last thing I remember is his expression of fear and sadness as I fall into a snow-covered trench where something happened. This happened," underneath the jacket comes the small sound of metal-on-metal as he reveals a metal arm with a star on the shoulder. I gasp at the metal panels clicking into place as he moves it.

"Oh, and the jacket... it was from Captain America," he ends. On the torn left sleeve of the jacket, a small, retro wing patch is peeling off of the faded fabric. Bucky scrutinizes it, and carefully peels it off the stained royal blue with his left hand. Bucky turns to me and holds out his metal hand- with the small angel wing patch in his palm. For a split second I touch hands with a killer; but find kindness and innocence in his actions. The patch will be the most meaningful thing I ever receive in my life.

Even as the alarm blares "code red" when I open the door to his cell and motion him out, even as I watch guards tackle him to the ground for being free, even as Father pounds him senseless, I know that Hydra is a true monster for hitting a man who did nothing but fight for what he wanted.

245 East Avenue, Brooklyn New York, January 9th, 2018

I still remember the night Bucky Barnes told me his story. With his escape in 2014, the Hydra facility though it would be a good idea to give me his jacket. What Bucky doesn't know is that don't have the patch or the jacket anymore. It's in a new place with someone who will appreciate it more. Only four months ago, I managed to get in touch with Steve Rogers, to give him something a longtime friend should have given him, the jacket.


End file.
